[NeillAlexander]

I wrote https://market.android.com/details?id=com.nwalex.meditation because I wanted to motivate myself to meditate more regularly. Prior to having the app, I'd manage maybe 10 days in a row, before finding some reason to skip a day (too busy, too tired, etc). Now I very rarely skip a day. As to whether or not it works long term, I've been using it for over a year, and it's still working for me. But then, it is custom built for my personality. My competitive nature means I never want to 'break the chain'. YMMV.

[ypcx]

I'm an iPhone user, but I'm moving to Android (via Galaxy Nexus) very soon, and I think your app will be one of the first ones I install. And it's great to hear that it helps you practicing for over a year, that's just wonderful. Do you have intervals of more days in a row when you don't practice at all? One idea for the app - build a reminder into it - but a random one. One that sounds an alarm at unexpected time of day. This might be great for cheating the evading mind.

[NeillAlexander]

It has a reminder, but it's not random. You tell it how many minutes you want to spend meditating each day, and then configure a reminder time. At that time a notification appears in the tool bar if you haven't met your target. You can configure the notification message to make it something that motivates you.

You can also configure what time your day starts. If you often meditate just before bed, and don't go to bed until after midnight, you can offset the start of day. I have mine set to 2am, for example.

Last but not least, it has a simple widget that displays the length of the current chain (the number of consecutive days you have met your target), your longest ever chain, and a representation of the proportion of the target you've met today. When you miss a day, the current chain resets to zero.

All this combined works well for me. I recently broke a chain of 369 days because I was really ill. It wasn't a decision I took lightly. I'm on a run of 31 days now - less than a year to go to beat my record!

Edit: it's also free

[ypcx]

Awesome! You might consider putting a paid version up, even with the same functionality, for people who want to express gratitude for your work.